


Like Leaves in Fall

by writerdragonfly



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Sentinels and Guides Are Known, Angst with a Happy Ending, Families of Choice, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:00:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24721228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerdragonfly/pseuds/writerdragonfly
Summary: Leaves in fall drop from trees at their own pace—whipping through the air or softly falling to the ground—but sometimes, sometimes there’s someone there to catch them. A fragile leaf, a gentle hand, a wish on the wind.Sometimes, there’s a happy ending.
Relationships: AVALANCHE & Cloud Strife, Aerith Gainsborough & Tifa Lockhart & Cloud Strife, Biggs & Cloud Strife, Biggs & Wedge (Compilation of FFVII), Biggs/Cloud Strife, Tifa Lockhart & Cloud Strife
Comments: 7
Kudos: 37





	Like Leaves in Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hadrian_Pendragons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hadrian_Pendragons/gifts).



> Canon Compliant through Final Fantasy VII Remake. Spoilers for the original game, the remake, and potentially some of the rest of the compilation. 
> 
> As with most of my fics, updates may be slow. 
> 
> For Hadrian, a tale of fighting fate and memory for a second chance at living.

In the Sector Five Slums, there’s a story they pass along. No one knows who started it, but by the time Biggs is born, most of the slums know it. 

It’s one of those fairy tales, “everyone lives, happily ever after” kind of things. 

Biggs doesn’t remember much about his parents. They were young when he was born, and he was young when they died. But he mostly remembers feelings—warm, soft, gentle feelings. And a story, the same story that’s bandied about the slums on a regular basis, but with little differences and a feeling that the other version can’t quite match. 

The Sector Five Slums version likes to embellish in the detail—a chosen partnership becomes soulmates, any platonic bonds become romantic. Biggs doesn’t like that. He remembers the choice inherent in the story, the decision of two souls cemented into one connection.

He doesn’t remember much about his parents, but his mother was fierce and his father soft and he was never without love while they lived. 

  
  


He takes that with him. He takes that with him as he grows, kindness second nature but vehement defense alongside it. _Care and protect_ , that’s his motto. 

  
  


_Guide_ was a word that meant two different things in the Slums of Sector Five. 

  
  


It just so happened both applied to him. 

  
  


-x-

  
  


Biggs is sixteen when he meets him. 

The kid shows up on a Saturday, a smudge of dirt across one pale cheek and a thin line of blood across the other. Biggs says kid, but he’s also sure the kid is probably close to his own age despite his small stature. 

He’s shy, lingering on the edges of the Leaf House, hesitation clear in his blue eyes. 

There’s a cheap bracer on his wrist, a single green materia glowing in the center. 

“You hungry?” Biggs asks, and the kid winces.

“I don’t have any more Gil,” the kid admits, “I spent the last to apply for SOLDIER.”

Biggs has seen a lot of teenage boys through the area, dreaming big and wide with stars in their eyes. Most don’t make it. Most of the ones that try are twice this kid’s size.

“That’s okay,” Biggs says and offers his plate.

-x-

  
  


He rings in his twenty-first birthday by leaving The Leaf House and joining up with Avalanche. It’s not an easy choice. 

There’s still no sign, negative or positive, that his someone is dead. Three years, and no news. 

Three years and all he has left is the longing that never leaves. 

  
  
  


He knows that nothing he does with Avalanche will bring him back—he has no doubt that Shinra took whatever they wanted and disposed of the rest. 

But it’s more than that. 

Gods, they’d thought they could do anything back then. The world was bright and happy and... and then there was the assignment that he never came back from. 

  
  


He misses Cloud more than he misses his parents. Sometimes, he thinks he should feel guilty about that. But, he didn’t remember his parents the way he had Cloud. He didn’t know what it was like to be held by them anymore. 

Cloud had been a friend, and later, something more. A promise of something far more. 

He had loved Cloud, pure and simple. 

And he had lost him before he really understood what that meant. 

  
  


The stories didn’t talk about the way it felt to lose someone as a Guide. They didn’t talk about how it felt to know how someone felt when it was dark and twisted. They didn’t talk about the way human love fits into the equation either. 

The stories didn’t talk about a lot of things. 

But if Biggs could do something with his gift, do something to keep the world alive, he would sacrifice everything to keep hope alive for everyone else. 

He joins Avalanche, leaves the Leaf House, and doesn’t let himself forget what he’s fighting for. 

SHINRA is killing the Planet and it’s already cost Biggs the person who he loved the most. Biggs would give everything if it meant it didn’t have to cost him another person.

  
  


-x-

  
  
  


By the time he’s twenty-three, he’s faced the fact that Cloud Strife is dead. He’s dead and SHINRA didn’t even acknowledge his death, didn’t do a damn thing but wave it away without a word. 

  
  


And then Tifa Lockhart hires an old friend to assist them in attacking Mako Reactor 1. 

  
  


And everything... _changes_.

  
  


-x-

  
  


Cloud’s eyes are glowing. It’s stupid, to be fixated on that one point. 

Cloud wasn’t a SOLDIER. He had washed out, committed to the Infantry until he could try again and Biggs had supported his choice. Cloud had been his _other_ person, his fledgling boyfriend--his Sentinel, even if he wasn’t truly one yet. Biggs wanted to be with Cloud for the rest of their days, and then Cloud went on a simple mission he never returned from.

And yet, here he was with Mako glow and absolutely _no recognition in his eyes at all._

The world was cruel and rough and painful. Biggs had known that for years.

Sometimes, he just wasn’t sure he really understood how true that was.

-x-

“He really doesn’t remember us, does he?” Wedge asks as he sits down on Biggs’ threadbare couch, a light cloud of dust wafting into the air. 

“He’s... hard,” Jessie murmurs from where she’s leaning against the wall, staring into her glass as if it held the answer to a thousand mysteries.

Biggs can’t bring himself to say anything. He isn’t even sure he wants to. 

He’d dreamed about seeing Cloud again so many times over the last five years, even once he resigned himself to the fact that Cloud must have died on some stupid errand for SHINRA and they didn’t even care enough to send his belongings back home. He dreamed about wrapping his arms around him and never ever letting go, pressing light kisses across his face until he reached his lips. He dreamed about holding his hand and walking through the Slums together, looking for people to help like they used to.

He never dreamed of seeing him alive again and not being able to do a damn thing because there was no lick of recognition in startlingly cold and glowing eyes.

  
  


“We’ll just have to help him remember!” Wedge says, cheery and determined.

  
  


But, Biggs isn’t sure it’ll be that easy. Cloud was gone for five years--not a sight of him anywhere--and now he was here and dressed like a SOLDIER and hard like a SOLDIER but with a clear distaste for Shinra. Something bad had happened, something terrible. 

If he remembered them, remembered _Biggs_ , would it hurt him even worse?

  
  


“Or we’ll just have to help him fall in love with Biggs all over again,” Jessie says, her voice clear and even for the first time since they got back. Her eyes are wet and her glass is empty, but she’s got that almost disturbing, determined smile on her face. 

  
  


“I...” he starts, but he isn’t sure what he wants to say to that. He wants Cloud, of course, he does. He missed him more than anything else in the world. But...

“I just want him to be happy,” Biggs says, and he means it, “even if it’s not with me.”

Wedge and Jessie share a look, and he knows what it means--he knows them far too well to assume otherwise--but he doesn’t mind.

“He’s your partner,” Wedge says, standing up to throw his arm over Biggs’ shoulder. 

Jessie does the same on the other side, her breath warm on his cheek as she speaks. “The one you chose. He’s family, now. We just have to make sure he knows it too.”

He loves them both far more than he can fathom.

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to comment~!
> 
> Hit me up anywhere to harangue me into writing, talk fic, fandom, or whatever catches your fancy.  
> [Tumblr: writerdragonfly](https://writerdragonfly.tumblr.com)  
> Discord: writerdragonfly#5403  
> [Twitter: writerdragonfly ](https://twitter.com/writerdragonfly)  
> PSN & Steam: writerdragonfly


End file.
